Opinion: Supremes Rebuke Speech Censorship

Best of the Web Today Columnist James Taranto on Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus and its implications for the First Amendment. Photo credit: Getty Images.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

... I ... the ... the Concerto I'm Mary Kissel ... another team victory for free speech at the Supreme Court yesterday ... about best of the Web Today columnist James rant here to talk about it James ... the Susan B Anthony list bonuses Casel ... Susan Anthony list is the anti abortion answered the pro abortion group Emily's list this is a group of ... anti abortion women who are I ... would ... advocate for the likes of Andy work candidates ... and they were running high that they want to run billboards on the issue price was spotted an ad Congressman Steve treehouse who was the Democratic congressman from Cincinnati was one of the seven congressman who voted for Obamacare after the credit of the present agreed to sign this executive order purporting ... to prevent taxpayer funded abortions ... says and analysts said ... three has voted for taxpayer money worsens ... he died ... from an action against them is as you live in a state commission ... saying this was a false statement it's a violation of an Ohio law that bars false statements in campaigns ... and he wanted the commission take action ... now the Supreme Court didn't actually rule on the underlying claim the first amendment plan ... on what they said was that even though the guy ... claim was dropped after the last election ... the lawsuit to go for it because there was AEI just issuable Legal clan ... in the case was right for litigation lawyers say now that this was a unanimous decision has got our act ... on it doesn't Roberts Supreme Court is building up a track record now and James ... not just in this case than in other cases it really ... is standing up for the first amendment for free speech ... well yes although I've this is an area where he said It's unanimous ... this isn't this is a different category from the campaign finance cases where ... I there is the sort of convoluted argument that somehow it's ok for political incumbents to regulate funding of elections ... because of the danger of corruption ... somehow having them regulate the funding of the elections to talent in this post to avoid crop Schneider know quite how that works ... but so those days like says is United in recent McCutcheon his over them all been decided by four ... this was decided not not think ... that the underlying freshman the case which I still backs of the law records to be considered I think is a very easy case because ... basically a ... twist last it's questionable whether this was in fact a false statement I would argue that the case is stronger than was true statement but in any case ... stock for the government to decide which political statements are false in which art ... and even if the statement were demonstrably false ... false statements have been a great deal of first Amendment rights to your ears in a group of lie about a candidate's record and that's protected under the Constitution well if you like your plan you can keep him plan at the one calling for rot prosecution and the president for that which would be ... hit on active ... consumer fraud if it'd been owned by private sector companies but look there's a taste of New York Times Company vs solve ... a case by the way that involved a political ad that was cited fifty years ago ... and the court said that in the case it is a public official sues for libel and later the extended this to cover all public figures which would include anyone running for election ... he has to prove not only that statement in question is false and defamatory Stockman saying somebody voted for taxpayer funding abortions funded abortion is defamatory because lot of people do that and ... pray you know it's considered a legitimate point of view ... but it also has to be deeply depressed show actual malice which means either knowledge that Steve was false or reckless disregard for the trip it's a very high standard ... this is why play gets in the United States almost never win libel case ... and ... the court applied the same standard to other similar cases such as the intentional infliction of emotional distress I it's very clear that that standard would have to apply here well we're going to have rules ... about fall citizen campaigns ... they have to meet this all the time they have to meet the Sultan to another victory